Kodaka was never very good at making friends and being half-Japanese with dirty blonde hair didn’t help his popularity at school. Yozora was always a tomboy and couldn’t get along with the other girls. When she forces Kodaka to go along with a new club she’s made for the explicit purpose of making new friends, their circle grows in ways they didn’t anticipate. It turns out Sena, the most popular girl in school, wants to seek real friendship instead of the empty admiration of her posse. Then things get ridiculous when Yukimura joins in order to work on developing his masculinity. Then the easily excitable Rika enters the scene to be with a group where she can let loose her passionate personality. As this varied group of social rejects stumbles their way through discovering the norms of youth, their clashes of personality set off fireworks of camaraderie.

When I first started watching this anime I had high hopes this was going to be a satirical story about how socially awkward people have a hard time making friends. What I got was a harem anime with an underlying subplot about the reunion of two childhood friends. There’s nothing immediately wrong with that and I don’t feel mislead. But I think a better plot catch would have been to appeal to a fan base that can relate to other people who typically have difficulty making friends. And on that note I am a bit disappointed a chance for a more meaningful story was passed up. This is especially poignant when several entire episodes of this short series are devoted to the characters just playing video games together in their clubroom. Overall, it’s dispersed with some very memorable moments that give a smile and a chuckle, but all the rest just melts into background noise. The pacing is quite poor and never gets a chance to wow the viewer.

C3 is definitely this season’s most underappreciated anime. I expected to watch a lot of good anime this season and I found myself disappointed with several series I had high hopes for. Cube is a surprise hit and it seems to be going largely unnoticed, which is really sad.

November 27

Shana III Ep. 8 Current events feel like the run down to the final battle. But with 16 episodes left, it’s far from over. What’s going on?

Fate/Zero Ep. 9 While this episode was important for character building, there was absolutely no plot development to forward the story.

Guilty Crown Ep. 7 Why is Shu back at school? This makes no sense. Didn’t the GHQ learn last episode that he’s a member of Funeral Parlor?

Working 2 Ep. 9 Sato’s life must be frustrating. Yachio’s life is too narrow. Takanashi is easily influenced. Yamada is a two-faced fraud.

C3 Ep. 8 Even when this anime has ecchi moments, it’s still brilliant and well composed. Yukari Tamura is in her element as Fear Kubrick.

Boku wa Tomodachi Ep. 8 That was a very different spin on the obligatory swimsuit episode. It’s nice to see a break from stereotypes.

Last Exile 2 Ep. 3 I guess the plot is progressing…? I see the character’s motivations, but their methods are haphazard at best.

Last Exile 2 Ep. 4 It’s all just too random. I can’t follow the plot without reading someone else’s summary. Fam is such a scatterbrain.

November 28

Persona 4 Ep. 8 The comedic twists continue to please, even if they aren’t very surprising for people who have played the game.

Mirai Nikki Ep. 8 Is this anime one big parable about how nice guys finish last? Amano needs to be more careful to avoid these situations.

November 29

iDOLM@STER Ep. 15 It seems that the key to improving daytime Japanese TV is to substitute all of the regular hosts for anime characters.

C3 Ep. 9 This was the setup episode for what is this series’ final arc. Not all the new villian’s motives are clear, but it’s still fun.

Ben-to Ep. 3 For being an anime about fighting over boxed meals at supermarkets, the metaphors are surprisingly deep and significant.

Boku wa Tomodachi takes inspiration for its graceful art style from Denpa Onna and gets its spunky character personalities from Oreimo—not a bad foundation if you ask me. It gets better from there with some particularly deep character traits that remind me of the kind of person I was in high school—jaded, without friends, content with my solitude but at the same time longing for a true companion I could trust. Surely, there must be a way for people with those kinds of personalities to find friends. And that’s what Boku wa Tomodachi is about. A group of socially awkward young people brought together by their loosely shared trait of being socially awkward. Who would’ve guessed such a formula could work so well? The characters are nicely diverse with lifestyles from very different paths, which creates a setting that is ripe for enjoyable conflicts.

Eucliwood Hellscythe, the quiet necromancer. Haruna, the genius magic girl. Seraphim, the vampire ninja. Ayumu, the high school zombie. Combine them together and there’s no end to the problems they can cause for each other. When Ayumu accidentally absorbs Haruna’s magic girl powers, it becomes her responsibility to instruct her new cross-dressing apprentice. And when Seraphim challenges Ayumu to a duel to the death, it’s more of a war of attrition when they realize that neither can kill the other. But underlying all of this is Eucliwood’s secret powers and troubled past. If her three friends can’t team up to protect her from the mistakes she has made, she might have to leave forever.

Kore wa Zombie desu ka? falls into that class of wild and strange anime that a lot of love and hate relationships develop around. While it’s understandable why many would want to steer clear of it, the cast of random oddities fits with the anime’s overall tone to create a nice cohesion that feels acceptable. I hear a lot of people complain about Ayumu’s cross-dressing. But is that really something to complain about when the rest of this anime is oftentimes just off-kilter, goofy and fun? Yes, occasionally Kore wa Zombie gets a little too serious for its own good given its cast of oddball archetypes, but overall it’s very entertaining.

Spring 2011 (Alternate titles – Ano Hana – We Still Don’t Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day)

Jinta, a high school dropout, is being visited by the ghost of his childhood friend, Menma. At first, all of Jinta and Menma’s childhood friends think he’s just still obsessing over losing her all those years ago. But little by little, they realize that Jinta’s loss was their loss, too. As they finally begin to come to grips with the reality of their traumatic childhood, the friendships they left behind several years ago are renewed. But through all of this camaraderie and healing, Menma remains invisible to everyone but Jinta. It’s not understood why he’s the only one who can see her, but it is clear that the reason she has returned is because she has some unfinished business that needs to be taken care of.

For me, Ano Hana just has a feeling of having way too much content that doesn’t move the plot forward. Admittedly, that feeling is probably unavoidable because it’s necessary to develop the characters and their backstories to make their actions and opinions understandable. But unavoidable or not, the fact remains that Ano Hana leaves the impression of being artificially lengthened, which is weird because it’s short to begin with. This feeling is especially strong as the anime concludes because everyone starts spilling all their pent up emotions in the space of only a few episodes. But again, this is another facet that feels naturally understandable and unavoidable, so I feel a little bad complaining about it. All things considered, while the ending is certainly heartwarming, it’s predictable and anticlimactic.